Diving into this week’s showing, the Straits Times Index (STI) was only open on four days as we celebrated Chinese New Year. On three of the four occasion, the STI closed in the red and on a weekly basis, it was mostly flat, down 18.75 bps or 0.6%.

The U.S. continues to dominate the global socioeconomic with Trump’s latest immigration ban. Subsequently, a court order suspended the ban, and ultimately, no one really knows where this is headed next.

# 1 Ezra Holdings Limited

Ezra has had a tough year operating in the weak global oil & gas market. On 11 January 2017, it applied seeking extensions to certain corporate actions, one of which was a 30-day extension for the release of its 1Q results.

More recently, it had applied for a trading halt on 1 February (which is why we are showing its 1-year share price chart rather than its 1-week chart below). This was due to what Business Times termed as a “massive impairment by Ezra’s subseas JV partner”. Taking into consideration the writedowns by its JV partners, the company’s solvency may be at risk.

With the 2016 full-year results already taking a hit of over US$370.3 million in writedowns, and incurring a loss of over US$887.8 million, it is difficult to see any bright sparks for the company in 2017.

The company’s share price closed at $0.048 on Wednesday (1 Feb 2017), the same as when it opened for the week on Tuesday. Looking at a longer term horizon, it has lost close to 7.7% of its value over the past one year period.

1-Year Chart

Source: Google Finance/ Yahoo Finance

# 2 Thai Beverage Public Company Limited

Serving up beers, other alcoholic, non-alcoholic beverages and food, Thai Bev is one of Southeast Asia’s largest Food & beverage companies.

On 2 Feb 2017, OCBC Investment Research released a “Buy” report on the company with a 12-month target price of $1.01, roughly 18.1% more than its current share price. The company’s shares traded at $0.86 on Friday (3 Feb 2017), marginally lower from $0.865 on Tuesday (31 Jan 2017).

Backed by its vision 2020, the company aims to achieve THB300 billion in revenue by 2020. The group bought over F&N back in 2013, and should it continue this strength in acquisition, it should be able to achieve its targets.

# 3 Sabana Shari’ah Compliant Industrial REIT

On Thursday (2 Feb 2017) Sabana REIT, along with its sponsor, announced that it would be undertaking a strategic review of its operations.

Coming after disgruntled shareholders were in favour of firing the managers over its poor performance in late January, the management conceded it had performed poorly compared to its peers. This comes on the back of another company, International Healthway Corp, that recently saw unhappy shareholders boot out its executive management team.

In its 2016 full year results, released on 26 Jan 2017, its revenue fell by over 8.9%, while its distribution per share fell over 30.4%.

Looking at its 1-week share price chart, the REIT has increased its value by close to 10.4% to $0.425 on Friday (3 Feb 2017) from $0.385 on Tuesday (31 Jan 2017). While this seems like great news for shareholders, its 1-year price chart actually paints a drastically different story – losing over 18.8% of its value, even after taking into consideration its share price rebound this week.

1-Week Chart

Source: Google Finance/ Yahoo Finance

Source: Google Finance/ Yahoo Finance

# 4 Jardine Matheson Holdings

Added back to the Straits Times Index at the tail end of 2016 after being removed from it at the end of 2015, Jardine Matheson Holdings certainly has an air of mystery around it. Should we love it or should we avoid it – even the STI cannot decide.

Jardine Matheson Holdings is part of the Jardine group of companies. With certain close links within the companies in the group, it is usual for the companies to own stake in one another (Jardine Matheson owns 83% of Jardine Strategic, and Jardine Strategic owns 56% of Jardine Matheson).

In its last financial announcement, for the first half of 2016, it report over 10% increase in its revenue to $34.7 billion in the first half of 2016 compared to $31.5 billion in the first half of 2015. Its profit increased to $984 million from $708 million, over 39% in the same period.

Its shares rose to $62.680 on Friday (3 Feb 2017) from $61.720 on Tuesday (31 Jan 2017), representing a gain of close to 1.6% in the short week. It will be releasing its next set of results on 2 March 2017, so keep a look out for it.

Source: Google Finance/ Yahoo Finance

4 Stocks This Week is not a recommendation from us to buy or sell any of these stocks. For investors who are keen to find out more, you should continue researching about them before making your investment decisions.

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4 Stocks This Week is not a recommendation from us to buy or sell any of these stocks. For investors who are keen to find out more, you should continue researching about them before making your investment decisions.